Do you have $500 laying around to spend on a smartphone? Well then, have we got a deal for you - Dell's most attractive piece of Android hardware to date, the Venue (formerly know by its code name "Thunder"), is up for grabs on Dell's website right now. At $500, it's not too exorbitant a price for an unlocked handset, and you get your choice of frequency band versions: AT&T or T-Mobile. You can expect it ship by the 18th of this month.

There will be no contract pricing, at least for the moment. The plus side to that, of course, is that on T-Mobile you can get a reduced pricing plan as a pay-as-you-go customer off contract. No such plan exists on AT&T (much to my chagrin after purchasing my AT&T Nexus One).

Downsides aside, the Venue is a drop-dead gorgeous phone, one of the prettiest pieces of Android hardware I've ever seen. Well, apart from the huge DELL logo on the back. I could do without that. Anyway, what's the Venue packing?

Underneath, it's a phone that probably should have been out around the time of the DROID X or the EVO 4G to be a true competitor. But, it's thin, sleek, and sexy - so maybe there's something to be said for that.

Planning to get yourself a Venue? Think it's a massive rip-off that is hopelessly behind the hardware curve? Let us know in the comments.

Comments

In my experience, Dell phones feel like crap - the screens are just bad. The upgrade speed is also very slow - why would anyone buy anything but HTC right now?

David Ruddock

Well, the screen on this is an AMOLED with WVGA resolution - at 4.1", that's up to par for DPI with any Android device.

And from what I've read, this device feels a lot less cheap than previous Dell phones, and a lot more ergonomic.

marcus

I own it's twin brother the WinPho7 Venue Pro and design, ergo & construction is excellent. Everything is tight & that keyboard on mine is wonderful. I love the design including the Android version of course. It feels very solid with a quality feel, good job Dell! Although this Android version is unfortunately out of date, should have been out months and months ago. The competition is way ahead of it with those dual-cores being released early March. Is Dell going to offer up Gingerbread update for this?